Japanese giant salamander

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Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Amphibia
Order:	Caudata
Family:	Cryptobranchidae
Genus:	Andrias
Species:	A. japonicus

Binomial name

Andrias japonicus
(Temminck, 1837)

The Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) is endemic to Japan, where it is known as Ōsanshōuo (オオサンショウウオ/大山椒魚, Ōsanshōuo^?). With a length of up to almost 1.5 meters (5 feet),^[1] it is the second largest salamander in the world, only being surpassed by the very similar and closely related Chinese giant salamander (A. davidianus).

1 Behavior
2 History
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Behavior

The Japanese giant salamander, being restricted to streams with clear cool water, is entirely aquatic and nocturnal. It has a very poor eyesight, and therefore depends on special sensory nodes on its forehead to detect even the slightest movement in the water. It feeds mainly on insects, frogs and fish. As it has a very slow metabolism and lacks natural competitors, it is a long-lived species, with the record being an individual that lived in the Natura Artis Magistra, the Netherlands, for 52 years.^[1]

A captive Japanese giant salamander

[edit] History

The Japanese giant salamander was first catalogued by Europeans when the resident physician of Dejima island in Nagasaki, Philipp Franz von Siebold captured an individual and shipped it back to Leiden, the Netherlands, in the 1820s.

The giant Japanese slamander is becoming extinct due to dams built on the rivers the live in. They are separated from their food supply and must eat human garbage to live. These giants are also swept away by the rivers because they lose the grip on the bottom of their feet. They lose this grip because they try to get up the dams and rub off the grip.